Update on PlayStation Network and Qriocity

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Update on PlayStation Network and Qriocity

Thank you for your patience while we work to resolve the current outage of PlayStation Network & Qriocity services. We are currently working to send a similar message to the one below via email to all of our registered account holders regarding a compromise of personal information as a result of an illegal intrusion on our systems. These malicious actions have also had an impact on your ability to enjoy the services provided by PlayStation Network and Qriocity including online gaming and online access to music, movies, sports and TV shows. We have a clear path to have PlayStation Network and Qriocity systems back online, and expect to restore some services within a week.

We’re working day and night to ensure it is done as quickly as possible. We appreciate your patience and feedback.

Valued PlayStation Network/Qriocity Customer:
We have discovered that between April 17 and April 19, 2011, certain PlayStation Network and Qriocity service user account information was compromised in connection with an illegal and unauthorized intrusion into our network. In response to this intrusion, we have:

  1. Temporarily turned off PlayStation Network and Qriocity services;
  2. Engaged an outside, recognized security firm to conduct a full and complete investigation into what happened; and
  3. Quickly taken steps to enhance security and strengthen our network infrastructure by re-building our system to provide you with greater protection of your personal information.

We greatly appreciate your patience, understanding and goodwill as we do whatever it takes to resolve these issues as quickly and efficiently as practicable.

Although we are still investigating the details of this incident, we believe that an unauthorized person has obtained the following information that you provided: name, address (city, state, zip), country, email address, birthdate, PlayStation Network/Qriocity password and login, and handle/PSN online ID. It is also possible that your profile data, including purchase history and billing address (city, state, zip), and your PlayStation Network/Qriocity password security answers may have been obtained. If you have authorized a sub-account for your dependent, the same data with respect to your dependent may have been obtained. While there is no evidence at this time that credit card data was taken, we cannot rule out the possibility. If you have provided your credit card data through PlayStation Network or Qriocity, out of an abundance of caution we are advising you that your credit card number (excluding security code) and expiration date may have been obtained.

For your security, we encourage you to be especially aware of email, telephone, and postal mail scams that ask for personal or sensitive information. Sony will not contact you in any way, including by email, asking for your credit card number, social security number or other personally identifiable information. If you are asked for this information, you can be confident Sony is not the entity asking. When the PlayStation Network and Qriocity services are fully restored, we strongly recommend that you log on and change your password. Additionally, if you use your PlayStation Network or Qriocity user name or password for other unrelated services or accounts, we strongly recommend that you change them, as well.

To protect against possible identity theft or other financial loss, we encourage you to remain vigilant, to review your account statements and to monitor your credit reports. We are providing the following information for those who wish to consider it:

U.S. residents are entitled under U.S. law to one free credit report annually from each of the three major credit bureaus. To order your free credit report, visit www.annualcreditreport.com or call toll-free (877) 322-8228.

We have also provided names and contact information for the three major U.S. credit bureaus below. At no charge, U.S. residents can have these credit bureaus place a “fraud alert” on your file that alerts creditors to take additional steps to verify your identity prior to granting credit in your name. This service can make it more difficult for someone to get credit in your name. Note, however, that because it tells creditors to follow certain procedures to protect you, it also may delay your ability to obtain credit while the agency verifies your identity. As soon as one credit bureau confirms your fraud alert, the others are notified to place fraud alerts on your file. Should you wish to place a fraud alert, or should you have any questions regarding your credit report, please contact any one of the agencies listed below.

Experian: 888-397-3742; www.experian.com; P.O. Box 9532, Allen, TX 75013
Equifax: 800-525-6285; www.equifax.com; P.O. Box 740241, Atlanta, GA 30374-0241
TransUnion: 800-680-7289; www.transunion.com; Fraud Victim Assistance Division, P.O. Box 6790, Fullerton, CA 92834-6790

You may wish to visit the web site of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission at www.consumer.gov/idtheft or reach the FTC at 1-877-382-4357 or 600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20580 for further information about how to protect yourself from identity theft. Your state Attorney General may also have advice on preventing identity theft, and you should report instances of known or suspected identity theft to law enforcement, your State Attorney General, and the FTC. For North Carolina residents, the Attorney General can be contacted at 9001 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC 27699-9001; telephone (877) 566-7226; or www.ncdoj.gov. For Maryland residents, the Attorney General can be contacted at 200 St. Paul Place, 16th Floor, Baltimore, MD 21202; telephone: (888) 743-0023; or www.oag.state.md.us.

We thank you for your patience as we complete our investigation of this incident, and we regret any inconvenience. Our teams are working around the clock on this, and services will be restored as soon as possible. Sony takes information protection very seriously and will continue to work to ensure that additional measures are taken to protect personally identifiable information. Providing quality and secure entertainment services to our customers is our utmost priority. Please contact us at 1-800-345-7669 should you have any additional questions.

Sincerely,
Sony Computer Entertainment and Sony Network Entertainment

The same information can be found at the following websites:

http://us.playstation.com/news/consumeralerts/#non-us

For those that live the United States, but not Massachusetts or Puerto Rico:
http://us.playstation.com/news/consumeralerts/#us

If you live in Massachusetts:
http://us.playstation.com/news/consumeralerts/#mass

If you live in Puerto Rico
http://us.playstation.com/news/consumeralerts/#pr

Comments are closed.

521 Comments

  • I am amazed that it took a week to let the public know that their personal identity might be at risk. Even if you weren’t positive, you should have said that it was a possibility. It takes minutes to steal someone’s identity. Many people use the same passwords for everything (sigh) so it’s very easy for the holder of their personal info (account names, email address & password) to gain control of multiple email accounts and then use that to take over other accounts (paypal, online banking, etc) via password recovery’s going to the same email account.

    Again, by delaying this announcement almost a full week, you have endangered the security of many of your customers. Ridiculous is all that can be said.

  • REGRET?!?!?! SERIOUSLY SONY!??!?! WHAT THE FLYING F***!!!!! JUST F***ING APOLOGIZE FOR ONCE IN YOUR MISERABLE LIFE!!!…..your arrogance is the reason you’re in this predicament in the first place and yet you STILL continue?

    seriously can’t wait to see what happens as soon as the PSN is up….SONY your failure to respect your consumer will be your own downfall

  • What’s the make good here? This is a lot of hassle for consumers.

  • This is pretty sad. This is no information once again. All it contains is that yes the information may be compromised and here are the places you can go to help alert you in case your info gets used.

    So much text, so little information. I agree with Xandure saying that they should just shut down the PSN but allow us to still login or able to play online because this is just getting over the top.

  • Time to trade DOWN to an Xbox360…pick up a cheap blu-ray player at walmart too…
    really [DELETED] this one up Sony…BIG TIME…and then to do NOTHING for your customers or PLUS subscribers…

  • well whoever has done this anonymous or whoever they now have a large number of people angery at them, if they did not already

  • You know Sony, I hope you guys are prepared for an ass-load-of Internet diarrhea blasts aimed at you guys in the form of legal battles and whatnot.

    You guys go around flailing your money and highly paid lawyers and sue people for jail breaking your PS3…and you guys didn’t expect other hackers to nerd-rage at you guys…really?

    Is this how daft, greedy, selfish, profit-orientated, and irresponsible of a company you guys ave become? This blog post should have been the 1st thing that was posted. All other posts about the PSN being down was just utter garbage.

  • Time to trade DOWN to an Xbox360…pick up a cheap blu-ray player at walmart too…
    really f4k’d this one up Sony…BIG TIME…and then to do NOTHING for your customers or PLUS subscribers…

  • I’m very satisfied by this particular update (very informative). Glad that I decided to take my credit info off before the network went down :)

    Anyway keep us informed with posts like these please. Seems like the psn might be down for the rest of the week though :(

  • I feel sad

  • @Vabor
    This is a lot of hassle…that we shouldn’t be responsible for doing.

  • We have a clear path to have PlayStation Network and Qriocity systems back online, and expect to restore some services within a week.

    “Some Services within a Week” I know it is a big ordeal to redo the servers and everything but how could you not have been prepared for something like this? I mean with all the crap going on in the past few months this should have been the top priority for your IT guys.

  • Everybody lets start a bonfire with our ps3s and go Buy 360’s

  • Thanks again Sony, true PS fans understand are are extremely grateful for all that you are doing.

  • @31 sid4peeps

    hmm shut up dude, no one cares seriously…

  • sid4peeps why dont you go to a 360 website and ask. No one cares that you’re leaving, you posted twice already.

    Thanks for the update Sony good thing I mainly used psn cards and when i did use credit I deleted right afterwards.

  • About how long is it going to take for it to get fixed?

  • and we cannot even log in to change or delete our info…why thank you…POS

  • @sid4peeps
    What did I tell you and everyone else here.

    I KNEW SONY WOULDN’T TAKE ANY RESPONSIBILITY FOR THIS CRAP AND THIS BLOG POST JUST PROVES IT.

    ABSOLUTELY AN UTTER & EPIC FAILURE ON SONY’S PART.

    I THINK IT GOES WITHOUT SAYING THAT WE SHOULD ALL BE GIVEN SOME FORM OF MONEY FOR THIS CRAP BE IT ACTUAL MONEY SENT TO US, PS STORE WALLET FUNDS, A BUNCH OF FREE GAMES MAILED TO US FROM SONY, ETC.

  • It’s because Sony has to worry about lawsuits that they take so long to communicate this stuff, unfortunately. It just makes it worse for everyone involved.

  • Thanks for the info.
    Being unable to play online is nothing compared to have your credit card info stolen. So I encourage all my fellow players to stop bothering the people who is working to fix this problem. Hate messages don’t help in any way.

  • So a week later you finally come out and say our personal information may have been compromised? Thanks.

  • @jonabbey
    Exactly.

    They’re being pricks because of the politics & legal department, corporate BS.

  • @33 you will never get an answer on that, so well done to all you [DELETED] that want to play amiga games on your ps3, you make me sick and geohot and the rest of them can go jump!!!!

  • are people really supporting sony? they let people steal your PERSONAL INFO!!! not justy your credit card that you can cancel, but you cant cancel your name, or address

  • Well that’s unfortunate because today would be the playstation store update and you know I’m 1 of those people that are waiting for the update but is not available. I hope you guys can resolve the matter as soon as possible so that you can get us back to speed again.

  • Thanks for the information. Take all the time to fix the problem. I think people just wanted to know what was going on.

  • Sony…

    I hope you guys can afford legal battles. and such.

    Let’s do some math here..

    Let’s say all 75 million of us get like $100 from Sony for this crap.

    75,000,000 x 100 = $750,00,00,000

    That’s $750 million down the drain.

  • Thanks for telling us 6 days after the information was taken that we should worry. It’s really hard to defend Sony anymore this generation for them has been a complete failure and joke.

  • SONY SHOULD STOP SAYING THAT THEY ARE RELIABLE !!!!!……

  • @Lopez9577
    Sony is completely being irresponsible with how they’re handling this.
    They’re a greedy company that overcharges on all their electronics and now Sony Computer Entertainment is being a greedy bastard just like their parent company.

    >_>

    They should at least let us remove our credit card info.

  • Don’t blame Sony we as members of the ps3 community need to raise hell against the hackers that did this. Sony got attacked that means we got attacked because we are Sony consumers.

  • THEY WOULD NOT GIVE US MONEY……. UNLESS WE LOSS all store history

  • Thanks for the update canceled my credit card and I’m having a new one sent to me. Hopefully we (the ones that are staying) will be online within a week.

    Needed to check my credit report anyways this just speeds it up.

  • I JUST WANT NUGS AND SOCOM SONY

  • This is BS! SONY, we know you just stole a penny from everyones account so you can start production on the new playstation confirmed yesterday for 2014… Lets do the math, 0.1 x $75,000,000 million = $7,500,000, thats a solid foundation for engineers to get under way.

  • Dear Ignorant People,
    Blame the man behind releasing the first successful hack on the PlayStation 3 Systsem, George Hotz. He deserves the majority of this blame and as a result of him hacking PS3 the other no-life hackers decided to go and hack PlayStation Network. If your Credit card Information was stolen, then Sony isn’t responsible. George Hotz is at fault because he started this BullS*** by hacking PS3 in the first place. if you’re mad at anyone be mad at him.

    TO ALL PEOPLE SAYING THEY’LL GO TO XBOX 360, DON’T BE STUPID! XBOX 360 HAS BEEN HACKED SINCE IT WAS RELEASED BACK IN 2005, YOU THINK YOUR INFORMATION IS SAFER THERE??? NO.

  • I’m a huge Sony fan and have been since PS1 but this is some bullshyt Sony yall should have told us thisa couple of days ago now hurry up and fix PSN

  • This is seriously [DELETED] now for sure. According to what they listed was compromised, even after changing any passwords/etc if and when psn comes back online, our psn accounts will be FOREVER at risk because of the information needed to easily access those accts is out there FOREVER.. That is seriously [DELETED].

    I know [DELETED] happens sometimes but yeah this is seriously [DELETED] far beyond not being able to play a game at this point.

    Lets all hope to god they’re not big enough [DELETED] to actually have our passwords in plain text……wait…..yeah, we’re [DELETED].

  • thnx for the update.. this info should been released earlier… but let’s hope the better… keep working sony…!!! we miss psn… really.. :(

  • I am so darn glad that I only ever use PSN CARDS, anyone and everyone that put their Credit Card info onto the psn has only themselves to blame. Do you have your CC info on FB for farmville and junk? No, I highly doubt it. Time for You Americans to start thinking SAFE..

    Also, what are us Canadians supposed to do? You only offer Americans help and information, you withhold info for a week and leave us out in the cold. (pun intended) I smell lawsuits guys, not from me but from alot of others.

    As for PS+ users, I am one and I DON’T WANT TO BE COMPENSATED, i paid to have discounted items that have FAR SURPASSED THEIR VALUE AS COMPARED TO THE AMOUNT PAID FOR PS PLUS! KEEP PS Plus alive. To all those that are ‘Demanding” to be compensated, you already have with each and every FREE game you received, so be quiet from here on in.

    Also Someone from your outside team should really call me, you have my phone number, I have some pertinent info that might just help you out alot. it seems the tech support people don’t want to take my information leading to arresting these folks seriously.

    I have called 10 times now, do I gotta call HQ in Foster City? It’s very long distance for me.

  • But why does my bank account say $0.00??? haha jk. those hackers better not have stole my trophies!!!

  • @74 xxnike629xxx

    “They should at least let us remove our credit card info.”

    Do you really think Anyone can access those infos right now except Sony? They turned off the network so why would you erase those infos? and why would everyone sue sony, that may be typically american but not everyone is like that…

    Stop talking with all your nonsense comments…

  • Using PSN cards may mean no CC BS to worry about but from my point of view all of our PSN accts are now FOREVER open to exploit at any time. Very F’d up.

    Like I said, waaay beyond just not being able to play a game at this point…

  • start calling it PSN: Forever…

  • About time maybe I switch to Xbox. We give our info and money and this is the thanks we get? I realize all systems are vulnerable but, the implementations to prevent these sort of things from happening should ALWAYS be in place BEFORE [DELETED] like this happens. Paying for PS+ seems to have been a big mistake, sucks I no whave to wait out the year I’m paying for knowing my info is being held by some random you guys let in. I’ve always owned Sony products but this definitely influences my future purchasing decisions.

    Thanks again, Sony.

  • @xpredictionx

    A penny times 75mill would read. .01 x 75000000 which would equal 750,000 [DELETED]

  • This is seriously F’d up now for sure. According to what they listed was compromised, even after changing any passwords/etc if and when psn comes back online, our psn accounts will be FOREVER at risk because of the information needed to easily access those accts is out there FOREVER.. That is seriously F’d up.

    I know $%&# happens sometimes but yeah this is seriously F’d up far beyond not being able to play a game at this point.

    Lets all hope to god they’re not big enough DA’s to actually have our passwords in plain text……wait…..yeah, we’re F’d.

  • Well I just contacted my bank and gave them a heads up on this.

    They guaranteed that my identify and my credit card & debit card info was safe.

  • One week?! I can’t wait a week.

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